Out Of The Clouds
Pippa Small on the luxury of made by hand, clean gold and being in love with the world
Pippa Small (@PippaSmallJewellery) is a responsible jeweller based in London’s Westbourne Grove and she is considered to be one of the most inspirational leaders in the jewellery industry. Awarded an MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elisabeth II in 2013, named ambassador of the human rights organisation Survival International and Winner of both the Ethical Jeweller of the Year and the Corporate Social Responsibility awards in 2016, and was also winner of the Green Sustainability Award by Town and Country magazine.
In this interview, Pippa tells Anne how she fell in love with travel as a young child, following her widowed mother who took her children to exotic places. She became attracted to stones very early on, and she explains how through stones, she keeps a connection to the places and people that each are linked to, and also finds a sense of protection from them.
Pippa shares how she went from studying medical anthropology to working with indigenous communities in South-East Asia before starting to develop her own jewellery. She started organically making her own pieces but she also developed her credentials working at Gucci under Tom Ford as a consultant designer in 2003. Even though, in her own words, her organic free flow jewellery felt at odds with the graphic and sexy feel of the Gucci house at the time she was recruited and briefed to go to India and design whatever she thought could work: colour, uneven shapes and a very different new aesthetic for their jewellery. This financially enabled her to start her first project working with the San bushmen in Botswana, combining her love of travel, working with indigenous communities and jewellery.
Anne and Pippa discuss the historic importance of adornment and jewellery, going back to the caves of Lascaux, the luxury that is ‘made by hand’ but also the great importance of learning to ‘make’ or transmitting tradition in the communities that Pippa has been working with, from Bolivia to India, to Jordan, Myanmar and Colombia. With a brand new collection out, made in Colombia from ethically sourced gold called ‘Together Forever’, Pippa and Anne talk about the difficulty of not just sourcing clean gold but motivating and educating consumers to talk about it.
The designer finishes the interview by sharing her love of books, and how moved she is by the world. Happy listening!
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You can find Pippa at https://pippasmall.com/
On Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/pippasmalljewellery/?hl=en
On Pinterest - https://www.pinterest.co.uk/Pippasmallpin/
On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pippasmalljewellery/
On Twitter - https://twitter.com/pippasmall
The cave of Lascaux - https://www.worldhistory.org/Lascaux_Cave/
The San bushmen in Botswana - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_people
The Kuna Indians - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kuna
The article in the Independent where Pippa discovered the environmental cost of producing a single gold band - https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/the-real-price-of-gold-5348614.html
Turquoise Mountain Foundation - https://www.turquoisemountain.org/
The Financial Times article on Pippa - https://www.ft.com/content/9ad9f7d9-043b-4a46-993a-cfa65d54b9ad
The song ' What a wonderful world' by Louis Armstrong
The full playlist from Out of the Clouds - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Viqm1uiiHtM5Y0FwTCtFR?si=7857c2daec32413a
The book 'The Other Side of Eden' by anthropologist Hugh Brody
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If you enjoyed this episode, click subscribe for more, and consider writing a review of the show on Apple Podcasts, we really appreciate your support and feedback. And thank you so much for listening!
For all notes and transcripts, please visit Out Of The Clouds on Simplecast - https://out-of-the-clouds.simplecast.com/
Sign up for Anne's email newsletter for more from Out of the Clouds at https://outoftheclouds.com.
Follow Anne and Out of the Clouds: IG: @_outoftheclouds or @annvi Or on Threads @annvi On Youtube @OutoftheClouds
For more, you can read and subscribe to Anne's Substack, the Mettā View, her weekly dose of insights on coaching, brand development, the future of work, and storytelling, with a hint of mindfulness.
